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[Histidine]

(Bringing this up because of a recent post on Nex thread)

Currently, outside of stations and specific unique-ship fights like the Ziggurat, Guardian and Tesseract, the game has exactly one way to make a 'hard' fleet to fight (like for high-tier bounties and punitive expeditions): throw more ships at the player, in multiple fleets if need be.
Suffice to say, this gets boring (grinding down an endless metal wall) and induces ludonarrative dissonance rather quickly, and adds performance concerns.

What tools might exist to make harder fleets through quality rather than quantity?

• S-mods
  • Barely used in vanilla
  • The current CoreAutofitPlugin doesn't pick very good S-mods, it currently just S-mods whatever hullmods the ship has, then a few 'generically good' but often not particularly strong hullmods (starting with Flux Distributor and Flux Coil Adjunct)
  • Also for some reason S-mods aren't considered in autoresolve strength?
• Better officers (higher-level, and/or with unique skills)
  • Players would complain that we can't get them too; AI cores circumvent this somewhat but would be lore-inappropriate in most cases
• Arbitrary stat buffs
  • Would be very annoying unless it was embedded in lore; perhaps an NPC version of the Commissioned Crews hullmod
• Something else?

For now, we could just try the low-hanging fruit: fix S-mods not being counted in autoresolve, make autofit try to pick S-mods that are good for the ship (or let .variant files specify a 'wantedHullmods' table that autofit can read), and use the feature on more vanilla fleets. Other than that, anyone have ideas?

[Hatter]

Maybe unique terrian effects and fleets built to make use of them? I.E. armor regenerates due to being in a nanite cloud, or beams deal hardflux, soft flux can't dissipitate outside of venting or if shields are up, etc.

Alternatively, having to engage a fleet supporting a Star Fortress.

[intrinsic_parity]

IMO, another big problem is that the game lets the player get too strong too fast so that a lot of the enemy content just gets bypassed.

But in terms of making end-game difficulty more interesting, I'm a fan of AI-exclusive ships and weapons that are moderately better than what the player can use. In the context of nex, having faction-specific boss ships that show up in invasion fleets and can't be recovered or bought would be cool IMO. Having elite weapons or officers with specials skills is another option. But obviously that's more content that needs to be made vs just stats and modifications to existing stuff, so maybe not worth the extra work?

Also, trying to make different factions difficult in different ways is important too IMO. It's way more interesting if you need to solve different fights in different ways, than if you just find one super fleet that murders everything. The super phase fleet is the only thing that really feels that way in vanilla IMO. I like the idea of rewarding the player for specializing against specific opponents.

[SonnaBanana]

Consumables for temp boosts, whether using existing items or new. Players should have access to them too.

Maybe unique terrian effects and fleets built to make use of them? I.E. armor regenerates due to being in a nanite cloud, or beams deal hardflux, soft flux can't dissipitate outside of venting or if shields are up, etc.

Alternatively, having to engage a fleet supporting a Star Fortress.

Unique terrain is problematic for AI. But Star Fortresses should be able to provide fire support to engagements within a certain radius, even if they're aren't involved.

[Amoebka]

I'm a fan of AI-exclusive ships and weapons that are moderately better than what the player can use

You are almost certainly in the minority there. We had that in the form of remnant ships, and people were begging non-stop for them to be recoverable.

Personally, I would prefer if instead of just bloating enemy fleet difficulty, the game put restrictions on player fleets instead. Perhaps some battle can only be done with small ships (4 dp or less each). Or only with civilian ships. Or only with exactly one ship. That kind of stuff.

[Vanshilar]

Yes I think more enemy fleets with s-mods could be interesting, however I think there should also be some "carrot" for it too. Right now each d-mod decreases the "worth" of the ship for XP bonus purposes by 10%; maybe each s-mod increases it by 10% or something to make up for it.

Overall though I think right now the factions could feature some more difficult battles. The most direct way would be that if you try to sat bomb them, there's some super planetary fleet for defense that you have to defeat first. It doesn't make sense that you can instantly wipe out millions of people and they don't put up any sort of defense about it. So that can at least create a bigger fleet, and help showcase the different fleet philosophies of each faction.

What may make it more challenging would be if the planet conveys some sort of bonus for the enemy fleet. I mean, the enemy fleet is near its home planet, it's got to have more resources available than fighting in open space. Not to mention, since it's a last-ditch defense, they're probably willing to run the ships more "hot" than usual. So the enemy fleet could gain some bonuses such as:

* More flux dissipation representing that it's a last-ditch effort so they'll run their systems more "hot" than normal.
* Weapon range increase/decrease representing that terrestrial sensors helping them are going to be better than what you can fit on ships.
* More speed, shield efficiency, etc., representing the ships are going to be better maintained due to being next to a planet with better facilities.

And so forth. The bonus could depend on faction and/or planet size. Maybe a missile-heavy faction could have double missile capacity or faster missile fire rate, etc. There really are a bunch of possible ways to add bonuses to the enemy fleet that could make sense in this scenario, and it would help show off the differences between the factions.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Yes I think more enemy fleets with s-mods could be interesting, however I think there should also be some "carrot" for it too.

The obvious "carrot" would be being able to salvage S-modded ships, which I believe is not currently in the game and enemy ships lose all S-mods after the battle is over.

[SCC]

Assuming s-mods you get actually are the s-mods you want.

[TheLaughingDead]

I'm a fan of AI-exclusive ships and weapons that are moderately better than what the player can use

You are almost certainly in the minority there. We had that in the form of remnant ships, and people were begging non-stop for them to be recoverable.

Personally, I would prefer if instead of just bloating enemy fleet difficulty, the game put restrictions on player fleets instead. Perhaps some battle can only be done with small ships (4 dp or less each). Or only with civilian ships. Or only with exactly one ship. That kind of stuff.

Spoiler

Restrictions would be nice, but also I think the "ships/weapons players cant use" idea still has a lot of merit. I think that, honestly speaking, there is hardly any way a player fleet could be challenged by a faction fleet if the player does have access to all the same weapons, equipment, buffs, etc. I mean hell, certain people on this very forum are making mincemeat of Remnants despite having significantly less officers with less skills/elite effects. The player can't use a station (often, and certainly not controlled) nor can the player use Dorito ships or the Guardian, the player can't use the Zigg in the fight against the Zigg (obviously), and the player has limited access to the all-powerful Omega weapons. Even though these all show an asymmetry in the things able to be used by the player versus the enemy, I don't think the game is worse-off for their inclusion (though I do think the choice of Omega weapons could be more consistent).

I think an interesting way to spice up some factions would be to have one-off (or possibly even re-occurring) battle that involves difficult and novel enemies that the player can't mimic (though ideally leaning away from/balancing out all the high-tech endgame enemies we have now). Imagine if the Supreme Executor had a custom-made ship for personal use that responded only to their personal genetic signature, and it had its own uniquely powerful and dangerous properties. Tri-Tachyon having a new cutting edge AI that did incredible things to a run-of-the-mill ship. A Persean League fleet (station?) employing their signature beam weapons in their most powerful form; a giant death ray!  Or a Hegemony fleet exemplifying Hegemony training by having officers give buffs to each other, making the fight easier as their numbers dwindle.

Technically these things could be construed as "bloated difficulty". After all, they are often buffs to already existing ships/weapons (in the case of a better officer), or could be new ships/weapons that are simply reskins of already existing ships/weapons with higher stats (like how one could consider AAF to really just be an X% increase in ballistic DPS). But I think a lot of these things could still be interesting additions to the game. And while yes, players clamour for access to things they cannot have, they also clamour for these unique encounters, which explains the many mods that feature these things cropping up constantly in the modding scene. But this all isn't to say I disagree with restrictions on the player as a difficulty lever, but rather, why not have both?

[close]

Also, trying to make different factions difficult in different ways is important too IMO. It's way more interesting if you need to solve different fights in different ways, than if you just find one super fleet that murders everything. The super phase fleet is the only thing that really feels that way in vanilla IMO. I like the idea of rewarding the player for specializing against specific opponents.

Big agree, when I mention above adding new/unique fights, I tried to brainstorm things that lean away from the high-tech theme that currently dominates endgame (both in Remnants and in Doritos). While naturally fancy technology is an easy source of inspiration for new and interesting threats, I'd at least like the aesthetics of some endgame threats to be more low-tech/midline. I'm sick of seeing blue enemies!

Unique terrain is problematic for AI. But Star Fortresses should be able to provide fire support to engagements within a certain radius, even if they're aren't involved.

That sounds like an awesome idea! Though, a lot of the ideas in my head sound difficult to implement for AI; like if Star Fortresses provided fire support, either it would be impactful and that would screw with the AI (threat assessment would be poorly calculated and they would probably be over/under aggressive) or it wouldn't be impactful and then why bother? Or the Fortress provides a buff to the enemy fleet, but then if it is just a simple numbers boost, that's boring and probably not worth the hassle. Could be as simple as the enemy fleet getting some of the Fortress' defense drones though. Like imagine if the enemy got some Merlon/Ravelin/Gargoyle defense drones added to their fleet for free (or some other free ship that functions better in a fleet setting).

EDIT:

Assuming s-mods you get actually are the s-mods you want.

Let the player scuttle the ship and get the XP for the S-mod install cost! Free XP in a ship!

[Dadada]

Thank you for the thread.

>Better ways to get strong enemy fleets
>Currently, outside of ... throw more ships at the player, in multiple fleets if need be.
Also: Distinction between modded and vanilla, this fleet avalanche is more of a mod problem imo, but vanilla and modded could profit from:
Going ham on officers (lvl and quantity), S-mods and player fleet skills for AI/NPC fleets sounds good to me and I assume they are on the easier side to implement?


>an NPC version of the Commissioned Crews hullmod
Sounds good to me.
Factions could have their own fleet wide skills, maybe elite fleets have a permanent buff or a chance to roll one, such an "experimental buff thing" could also have a chance to roll on/before the engagement (with elite fleets):

-> Makeshift armour plates, one use and ups armour
-> Juiced crew/hand picked elite crew/illegal D+ whatever AI/sleeping pods cramped on the ship on the walls of inner corridors to double the crew -> double or infinite peak operation time.
-> Experimental adjuncts and engines etc. which up the speed by 20 or 25%, one time (for the whole battle if not disengaged?) use
-> Super modulation which hardens all shields fleet wide and stacks with other shield bonusses/boni, or an offensive version where the damage multiplier against intended targets like explosive vs armour gets increased by a lot
-> "mobile" relays for the enemy, maybe with different modifiers and not just fleet points, like +30% range etc.
^^^^ could spawn as additional relays closer to the enemy entrance points (obviously already in their possession) or as ships or some other special thingies.


-> more flanking and pincer ambushes and similar stuff, anyone? For certain key/story fights? On the campaign layer and battle maps? Well, we do have SP to "chicken" out I guess...
-> Some fleets which actually contain really good "player tier" ship builds? If that one rolls S-Mods (or maybe an officer) it's going to be fun, I want that.

Also, trying to make different factions difficult in different ways is important too IMO. It's way more interesting if you need to solve different fights in different ways, than if you just find one super fleet that murders everything. The super phase fleet is the only thing that really feels that way in vanilla IMO. I like the idea of rewarding the player for specializing against specific opponents.

+1


I hope we get more and different and difficult Dorito stuff.
-difficult
-potentially diverse with different Dorito types
-player doesn't have access to most of the stuff the enemy is using

[llama]

make autofit try to pick S-mods that are good for the ship (or let .variant files specify a 'wantedHullmods' table that autofit can read), and use the feature on more vanilla fleets.

Before we get into hard stat buffs I'd extend this to loadouts in general, it seems like there's still power being left on the table in terms of weapon-hullmod-officer synergy.

[Dadada]

This I guess. If we combine Smods, Officers, fleet wide (player) skills for enemy fleets and proper loadouts we are good I think. 

Ofc, flying ships and/or giving good commands/using good tactics/optimized loadouts and using combinations of ships and weapons and wings etc. which are not available to the enemy fleet faction, also using the right ship for the right role, a fork as an instrument just wont do for a soup, will still devastate enemy fleets as intended.

With all these changes my XIV Onslaught with a good build, Smods and officers could get in trouble more often, instead of a fight with a Dmod Onslaught with potato mods, no officers and Smods but sometimes instead a properly build one with some or a lot of bonus stuff, it's going to be a much more interesting and even fight.

E: Still, I think the occasional elite enemy fleet doctrine or battle map modifier could spice things up.

-> "redeemer fleet", Luddic Path, +2/3 explosive radius and damage on death of enemy ships
-> "Liquidation fleet", TT, contains more phase ships and especially (pirate) Afflictors, ships have deadly loadouts, move even faster while phasing
-> "Artillery fleet", PL/Heg, ships have longer range but less movement and turret turn speed, lot's of bigger ships with an addition range bonus, somewhere between +20% and +50%

-> hyper storm/magnetic storm -> shields have less "juice" and rocket guidance is fuzzy
-> uplink scrambling, halves range of fighters and boni from beacons
-> unstable locations/anomaly/dense energy field, projectile and targeting range reduced but flux dissipation increased by a fixed amount per ship size or as a %
->->-> Fleets, ships and loadouts, which benefit (more) from these are spawned to bonk the player, see spoon instead of fork for the soup.

[intrinsic_parity]

Honestly, the thread is making me concerned about power creep. Maybe the real problem is that the player can get too many bonuses that trivialize the standard content.
 

[Megas]

Better officers (higher-level, and/or with unique skills)

Player that does not get one or both officer skills (or Automated Ships) already has worse officer power than endgame human fleets.  They have 10+ level 6 officers while player has 8 level 5 officers.  Yes, I know Leadership 5+ seems to be standard in most player builds.

If human ships get three s-mods on top of their officers regularly, then their ships will be better than a player's fleet that did not get Leadership 6 (for both officer skills and BotB), or BotB plus Automated Ships.

IMO, another big problem is that the game lets the player get too strong too fast so that a lot of the enemy content just gets bypassed.

Named bounties get stronger even faster than the player.  Yes, player eventually catches up (and surpasses) them, but much later.  Does not help early game when player is struggling to make do with limited gear and money.  (Recent games, I have abandoned combat entirely early and ride the black market gravy train.)

If player should be stuck with weak stuff for an extended period of time, then bounty progression needs to be rolled back to the much slower pace of earlier releases.


NPCs have one advantage over player:  they have unlimited resources and can generate as many ships as they want, whenever they want, for free.  NPC casualties cost nothing to them.  Player that takes casualties always pays something, even if the cost can be easily absorbed late in the game.


As far as making enemies stronger, make another faction, a supernatural one.  Call it "corrupted", "eldritch", "hellspawn", "zombie", or whatever.  This new faction uses everything, human ships, AI ships (Derelict, Remnant, maybe Omega ships too), like named bounties do.  Basically, the pirate faction, but on a supernatural and evil bent.  Any monologue from the faction is corrupted nearly unintelligible black speech, and they cannot be reasoned with or befriended.  Could be the Omega faction corrupting everything it touches or some other nastier eldritch horror the game hints at, making everything glow purple like Alpha Site Ziggurat.  Whatever of the cause, the ships could get a special hullmods or other buffs that boosts stats and maybe add other special effects to all weapons, like all attacks partially penetrating shields or hits on armor/hull add hard flux and can overload.

P.S.  Adding to the above, when it is endgame time, zombie apocalypse begins and starts corrupting almost everything and all NPCs get corrupted and buffed, and player will fight boosted fleets from now on (until he shuts down the source and wins the game).

Honestly, the thread is making me concerned about power creep. Maybe the real problem is that the player can get too many bonuses that trivialize the standard content.

Omega weapons do not help.  After killing four or five Tesseracts, player can have superweapons for a ship or two.

[Histidine]

Honestly, the thread is making me concerned about power creep. Maybe the real problem is that the player can get too many bonuses that trivialize the standard content.

Indeed that's a thing I forgot to discuss in the OP, but would probably require an entire thread or two on its own anyway: reduce player peak strength somehow so the hardest fights can be less bloated. How? Who knows... Two ideas I recall are limiting the number of capital ships in the fleet (kind of arbitrary) or making them harder to find/use (just delays the problem).

I'm a fan of AI-exclusive ships and weapons that are moderately better than what the player can use

You are almost certainly in the minority there. We had that in the form of remnant ships, and people were begging non-stop for them to be recoverable.

Personally, I would prefer if instead of just bloating enemy fleet difficulty, the game put restrictions on player fleets instead. Perhaps some battle can only be done with small ships (4 dp or less each). Or only with civilian ships. Or only with exactly one ship. That kind of stuff.

Yeah, unrecoverable enemy ships works in the cases of bosses like Guardian or Tesseract, but normie human factions having such ships in relatively common fleets would generate a lot of "what makes this ship so special that I can't recover it?" questions.
Maybe some overpowered enemy ships could be recoverable but in weaker form (kinda like Ziggurat, or the daemons in the Tahlan Shipworks mod).

Battles with unusual 'gimmicks' would be nice in general; right now there's not a lot of variation in how battles play out. Though they're not a general solution to the problem; it'd be pretty weird if a large fraction of battles had such unusual properties.